Comedian Ricky Gervais announces dates in three large scale arenas

The comedian and writer of The Office has announced three performances in
venues with a capacity of between 7,500 and 9,000.

By Will Humphries

2:36PM BST 05 Jul 2012

Stand-up comedian Ricky Gervais, creator and star of BBC’s The Office and Extras, has announced three dates in huge Scandinavian arenas.

Previous stand-up tours by the comedian have mainly taken place in large theatres, but the 51-year-old, has now graduated to large-capacity arenas.

Considering the draw of the often-irreverent Gervais, whose 2007 Fame tour sold 100,000 tickets in only nine minutes, the decision to sacrifice intimacy for accessibility is perhaps justified.

The announced shows are part of the Scandinavian leg of his tour, with the Oslo Spektrum Arena (7,500 capacity), the Gothenburg Skandinavium Arena (8,000 capacity) and the Stockholm Spektrum Arena (9,000 capacity) each preparing to host the British comic.

With a combined capacity of around 24,500 for the three shows, Gervais jokingly commented: “The last dates I did sold out in minutes but these should allow my fans to get a ticket as I think the capacity accounts for about half the population of Scandinavia.”

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His international fame is at an all-time high after his controversial hosting of the 2011 and 2012 Golden Globes Awards. Rising to prominence in 2002 on the back of the fly-on-the-wall mockumentary The Office, Gervais’s currently unnamed show will be the latest in a series of stand-up tours by the comedian which have included Animals, Politics, Fame, and Science.

Today’s announcement is confirmation of rumours circulated on Gervais’s blog in March, where he told fans: “I'm planning a European arena tour. It will be quite intense playing as many big venues as possible in a short amount of time between filming various projects I have in the UK and America.”

However, despite a busy filming schedule, which includes work on the latest series of An Idiot Abroad starring friend and colleague Karl Pilkington, Gervais added: “Once the show is nailed down I can always pop back and forth for the odd gig.”